The broad long-term goal of the NCCU SCORE program is to enhance the overall biomedical research capability at NCCU and contribute to increasing the number of underrepresented minorities conducting funded biomedical research. This competitive continuation application requests support for research projects and pilot projects, and has five program goals: (1) to increase research productivity of the subproject PIs aimed at preparing them to compete for investigator-initiated extramural funding; (2) to increase participtation in SCORE by faculty members who have not yet submitted proposals for research funding; (3) to increase research collaboration between the NCCU departments and the Julius L. Chambers Biomedical Biotechnology Research Institute (JLC-BBRI); (4) to increase inter-departmental collaborations on biomedically related projects among the science departments within the NCCU New Science Complex (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, and Environmental Science), and (5) to enhance the efficiency of research support provided to subproject PIs. Each goal has a number of measurable objectives and outcomes, which include: setting a minimum of one publication in a peer-reviewed journal per year per PI; translating research collaborations to increased submission of new proposals; translating faculty presentations at national meetings to publications within two years; introducing three new supplemental proposals to SCORE from new applicants, and evaluating publications by PIs in relation to budget dollars spent. The eight research projects in this application represent the Departments of Biology, Chemistry and the JLC-BBRI. [unreadable]